There are several techniques used to separate water from various contaminants, such as hydrocarbons, salts, debris, dirt/clay, coal, hazardous material, or the like. Sources of industrial wastewater come from various industries generally, such as from facilities including chemical plants, fossil-fuel power stations, food production facilities, iron and steel plants, mines and quarries, nuclear plants, and others. Thus, evaporation from evaporation ponds has been used to separate various types of contaminants from water. For example, salt evaporation can be used to produce salt from seawater, or can be used to dispose of brine from desalination plants. Mining operations can use evaporation to separate ore or other material from water. The oil and gas industry can use evaporation separate various hydrocarbons from water. Evaporation can also be used to separate water from various types of hazardous or non-hazardous waste, reducing its weight and volume to make it more easily transportable and stored.
As many industries produce some wastewater, there is a trend towards minimizing wastewater production and/or recycling wastewater where possible. However, typical evaporation ponds can be large, taking up a significant amount of real estate (which may not be available in some instances), and evaporation ponds can take months to adequately evaporate/separate the waste material from the water though evaporation.